


Snap

by blackmetaldahlia



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: College, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmetaldahlia/pseuds/blackmetaldahlia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Law school is hard. Everyone knows that. Matt’s smart, he was at the top of his class in undergrad, and he knows how to study. How to do well on tests. How to compensate for the gaps professors accidentally leave disabled students to jump over. </p>
<p>Matt's also stubborn, overly ambitious, and occasionally an anxious wreck. That last one doesn't come out very often, but when it does, well. It does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snap

**Author's Note:**

> So this is from this kinkmeme prompt: https://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/725.html?thread=431573#cmt431573

Law school is hard. Everyone knows that. Matt’s smart, he was at the top of his class in undergrad, and he knows how to study. How to do well on tests. How to compensate for the gaps professors accidentally leave disabled students to jump over.

Foggy calls him a nerd, but he means it as a compliment. And occasionally as a way to get Matt to chuckle and maybe leave the dorm room once in a while to get the ‘college experience’. “Listen, I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, but your fancy degree isn’t gonna do much if you don’t make connections in law school, and _you’re_ kind of the one who’s good at charming in this relationship, which is totally unfair because you are a _massive nerd._ ”

And Matt laughs and throws his pillow and, sometimes, agrees to go out with Foggy.

During their second year, Matt’s overloading on courses. His diet is coffee and fruit, and occasionally pizza if Foggy asks him sixteen times in a row if he wants any. He still finds time to go to the gym, but for not as long, yet his workouts feel even more intense.

“You do know you don’t _have_ to do the extra credit, right?” Foggy asks late one night, while they’re both working on an extra credit assignment. Foggy’s trying to bridge the annoying gap between a B+ and an A-, and Matt’s got an A but he has to be better. He just does. Do your best, and then do better.

Matt just grunts and puts in his other earbud. Everything takes longer for him, and it drives him crazy. He’s got JAWs on, telling him every key he’s hitting, but he types so fast that he has to listen to his essay a few times afterwards to make sure there’s no stupid typos. And the bumps on his J and F keys are getting so worn down that it’s more likely he’ll have his hands on the wrong place on the keyboard.

JAWs sounds tinny in his ears, and it’s distracting him while he’s trying to remember the name of an important milestone case against the Defense of Marriage Act. He moves to his refreshable braille display and starts scouring Wikipedia, ignoring the screenreader as it unhelpfully tells him the CSS formatting of the page.

“I haven’t seen you sleep in a few weeks, you know,” Foggy says, and Matt shushes him. He hates the way Wikipedia’s citations pop up on his display. But not as much as he hates JAWs repeating h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash every time he hits a hyperlink.

He’s been sleeping, anyways. A catnap here and there. A few hours at night. He mutters something about it to Foggy’s general direction, and then lets out a shout as he finds the name of the damn case he was looking for.

“I just worry about you, buddy.”

Matt swallows his guilt and shrugs. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

***

There were no therapists at St Agnes, but there was a nun who had gotten her degree in psychology, and latched onto Matt like a burr. Matt didn’t appreciate her about 99% of the time, but every once in a while when things got completely overwhelming and it was hard to breathe, hard to even _speak_ , it was nice to know that she was around. She would hold his shoulders, make him breathe with her breathing, give him water and tell him that it’ll be over soon.

It was, truly, every once in a while. If they were totally out of the blue, she called them panic attacks, but sometimes they weren’t - the only time he really _knew_ what was happening was on the anniversary of his father’s death. He could imagine the feeling of a slowly cooling face under his fingers, and it felt like everything inside of him was trying to claw its way out. Other times it would happen when he was worried, like when Father Jeffries had pneumonia and all of the nuns were scared that he wasn’t going to make it. But most of the time, they were out of nowhere.

He hadn’t had one in a few months. Foggy sat with him on his customary Anniversary of his Father’s Murder breakdown, muttered about how a lot of his family members had anxiety issues, he understands, it’s okay. He even had the grace to pretend that nothing happened the next day, following Matt’s completely stoic lead.

***

Matt finishes his paper, turns it in, catches his few hours of sleep, and does it all again the next day. And the day after.

And then he doesn’t. He can’t explain it. It’s like he wakes up in a different body. He’s completely disoriented, and Foggy’s voice both helps that and makes it worse. “Hey, sleeping beauty, waking up just one hour before class instead of three?”

What day is it? Did he lose track? Wasn’t it Friday? “What day is it?” he groans, patting his dresser for his phone. He forgot to plug it in. That’s probably why his alarm didn’t go off. How did he forget to plug his phone in? He _always_ remembers to plug it in.

“Thursday, we’ve got Torts in an hour.”

“Hm,” Matt replies, and he rolls out of bed. Everything feels…wrong. It feels like he’s moving underwater, like it’s taking a few seconds for his limbs to respond to his brain. He yanks a pair of jeans out of his dresser and a t-shirt, and then grabs his glasses and heads to the bathroom. So, no time for the gym, but at least he’ll get to class.

He doesn’t feel sick. Matt knows how sick feels, and this isn’t it. Sick means everything is too sharp, too loud, too strong. Everything feels muffled, instead, with pangs of sharpness slicing through. Someone down the hall laughing. A glass breaking. JAWs is gonna be hell on his ears today, he just knows it.

Foggy’s quieter than usual while he leads Matt to class. He tries to make a few jokes, but Matt’s just not feeling it today, and responds mostly with noncommittal grunts or tired jibes. Torts is the one class they share, which is extra good since the professor has a habit of writing things on the board without reading them out. Matt doesn’t want to trouble disability services for a note taker, especially since the last time he went in they treated him like he was five, and made out of paper. Paper that was on fire.

Halfway through class Matt realizes he forgot to put on deodorant, and really hopes the faint smell of BO is only noticeable to him. Ugh. Awful.

The underwater feeling doesn’t go away, and Matt finds himself getting increasingly frustrated by things he’s just _forgetting_ to do. Plugging his phone in was just the start. He forgets to bring quarters when he drags his laundry to the laundry room, and has to double back twice when he realizes that he also forgot detergent. And then he leaves his clothes in too long and they start to smell like mildew, so he runs them through again. A few times, he forgets to comb his hair – actually it’s getting kind of long, maybe he should get it cut? He doesn’t want to trouble anyone. He shaves, semi-regularly. Probably.

He forgets to turn in an assignment. Which is stupid, because he _does_ it, he just spaces on actually getting it uploaded. Part of it is that JAWs is genuinely slowly driving him to homicide, or technicide, or something, so he’s been trying to do as little on his computer as possible. When he realizes that he forgot to turn in the paper, he literally runs to the professor’s office, misreads the braille numbers and bursts into a complete stranger’s room, and then finds the correct room and proceeds to hyperventilate until the professor has to shake him by the shoulders and tell him it’s _fine_ , Matt’s never missed anything before, just get it in by the end of the week, he understands, please calm down!

It’s not exactly a panic attack, and the professor isn’t exactly effective at calming him down, but Matt’s at least able to get back to the dorm room. He realizes that he had forgotten his glasses, and hates himself just a little bit for how obvious his crying fit must have been to anyone who saw him.

He’s on edge already when Foggy comes back from his evening class bearing gifts of milkshakes, and when he misjudges where on his desk Foggy put the shake and knocks it onto the floor, everything just ends up pouring out of him. Before he knows it Foggy’s holding onto his shoulders and telling him it’s fine, it’s fine –

“No use crying over spilled blended dairy products,” Foggy says, quietly, and Matt tries to even get words out.

“I know – “ he gasps, hunching over. “I know, this is so – _stupid –_ “

“Shhhhh, it’s fine, it’s fine.”

“Not fine, not fine, I can’t _breathe_ , so stupid – “

“Breathe with me, dude, breathe with me.” He pulls Matt into a hug, and it has to be awkward since Matt’s hunched in his crappy desk chair and Foggy’s sort of crouching, but Matt feels Foggy’s heart pounding too fast, too fast, it’s his fault for getting Foggy upset and worried, that’s not fair to him – “Shhhh, breathe with me, come on. In. Out.”

It takes a few tries, but Matt manages to get a single gasping breath in while Foggy inhales, and then another, and soon he’s at least kind of breathing. He’s shaking like a leaf.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Foggy resumes muttering once Matt seems stable.

“Really not,” Matt mutters, hating how scratchy it sounds. His throat is unhappy. “Sorry.”

Foggy bites his lip. Matt hears it. “Look, I understand the impulse to apologize, and go ahead and do it if you really feel like you gotta, but I promise it’s not necessary.”

Unhelpfully, Matt chokes out another “Sorry,” and then suddenly feels everything inside of him well up again and he has to push his head onto Foggy’s chest and try and match his breathing before he spirals again.

“You’ve been stressed out. It’s okay. It makes sense. No worries.” Foggy keeps up a steady monologue of quiet assurances and slowly rubs Matt’s back in small circles, but his heart is still a little bit too fast. “How about you get some sleep? It’ll feel better when you’re not running on coffee and anxiety.”

“Hm,” Matt says, which isn’t actually agreement, but Foggy tugs him up and gently pushes him onto his bed anyways.

***

Matt hates his bed. He hates his sheets, because Twin XL is a ridiculous size so there’s nothing remotely soft available. He hates that the springs are all slightly different strengths, and that they creak at different tones every time he so much as twitches. He hates the faint smell of sex that clings to it, and the way the tags on the underside sound against the wire support of his bedframe. He also hates his creaky bedframe, and the way the screws in it rattle where they’ve started to become loose. He hates everything about his bed.

So he really, really wishes he could get out of it. After Foggy got him to get some sleep after his first panic attack of the apparent inopportune psychotic episode that _still_ has Matt trapped in its throes, he can’t really find reason to leave it.

Oh, right, the milkshake spilling was just the first of, apparently, a truly impressive amount of panic attacks that Matt chokes down, pulling his knees to his chin and clutching his head in his hands as he tries to rationalize his way out of feeling like he’s dying. He hates this. He hates this. He hates this.

He gets out of bed to go to the bathroom and shower, if he can’t stand the smell of his own skin. Considering his diet has suddenly switched to a box of stale Fruit Roll-ups that have been in his desk drawer for months, it doesn’t take long. His sweat smells like chemicals and dyes.

It’s been a week since he’s gone to the gym. His gym shoes sit at the foot of his bed, smelling awful and constantly reminding Matt that he should be better than this.

A few times he manages to get ready for class. Ready meaning his pants are clean and he brushed his teeth. And then he doesn’t go. He can’t, for the life of him, explain why he doesn’t go, except that at the last minute it’s like he’s possessed by someone who _isn’t_ a good student, and he ends up back in his bed. The bed that he hates.

He does the reading that’s assigned. He really does. Well. He tries. He _does_ it, but he can’t for the life of him explain what it said or why it matters. It falls out of his head before he can even begin to process it, and he finds himself reading the same sentence over and over until his fingers go numb. Assignments, he puts in a token effort, if he can actually remember to do them.

He lies to Foggy. This is the worst thing. “Hey, bud, I thought you had class today?”

“Cancelled,” he groans. Or, “Busy making up for other classes.” Or, if he’s feeling especially unmotivated, “You thought wrong.”

Foggy gets him to go to Torts come Thursday, a week after Matt woke up underwater, and Matt thinks he can act like there’s nothing wrong. But Foggy immediately notices how Matt’s on edge. How he’s barely typing. How he probably looks like shit, his hair is too long and probably greasy, and he smells awful. By the time they get out of class, Matt’s ready to return to his bed, that he hates, and crawl under the covers and chew his nails until they bleed. He’s obviously got a busy schedule, so when Foggy steers him away from the dorm building, he objects.

“I haven’t seen you eat in about a week, and I know you’ve lost weight,” Foggy says gently, but his heart is going a little bit fast again. “I know you’re all ‘I’m Matt Murdock, Incredibly Handsome Android,’ but I _do_ know that you need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” he replies, trying to pull away from Foggy’s grip. “I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Like sit in bed?”

Matt freezes. Has he been that obvious? He’s at least pretended to be reading, some of the time. “Yes. It’s important work,” he says, deciding to play it straight.

Foggy just chuckles, but it’s a nervous sound. “Seriously, dude, you’re spooking me. It’s like you’re not even there. You just sit there. For hours, sometimes.”

Oh. That’s…troublesome. And new. “Meditating,” he lies.

“Yeah, no, you get all serene and peaceful looking when you meditate. Nice try, though. Come on,” he drags Matt into a sub shop, and orders for both of them.

It’s the first real food Matt’s had in a week, and he tries to act like he hasn’t realized how hungry he is, but holy shit. He’s hungry. He eats all of his food, and pretends not to notice Foggy sneaking more food onto his plate while he thinks Matt’s not paying attention. Was Foggy really that worried about him?

That question is answered when they fall into an awkward silence, which Foggy decides to end with “So you do know you have issues out the wazoo, right?”

Matt stiffens, and feels his stomach cave in. “I’m blind, my dad was murdered, and I grew up in an orphanage,” he says, trying for humor. “I’d be worried if I didn’t have issues.”

“Matt.” So humor was the wrong choice, there.

He sits silently, chided, for a few long moments. “I don’t know what to tell you. I _know_ I’ve been acting weird.” His heart _hurts._

“You’ve been acting _possessed_ – I’d ask what’s gotten into you but with the whole Catholic education I’m worried you’re gonna actually give me a demon’s name or something. Are you okay? Do we need to talk to someone?”

“No – no, absolutely not, no,” Matt instantly says. “Look, I know I’ve been…” he chooses his next word very carefully, “off. I don’t know why, but it’s weird and scary for me and I know having someone else try and root around in my head is just going to make it worse. I’ll work through it.” He always does.

Do your best, and then do better.

Foggy’s not pleased with this answer. “Dude, you’re missing classes. You never miss classes.”

“Do you think I don’t _know_ that?” Matt manages to choke out, suddenly furious. “I don’t know how it keeps happening, but it does!” He’s keeping his volume down, but it has gotten just a little bit quieter in the shop.

“I know you know that,” Foggy says, reasonably. “I also know that you’re probably killing yourself over it, or at least beating yourself up. I’m just presenting the evidence.”

“What case are you trying to make?” Matt asks after huffing a breath out through his nose.

“I think you need to see someone. With a degree.”

“And I think you’re wrong.”

“Great defense, future lawyer. And also, more evidence – you didn’t notice the opening for the obvious ‘I can’t see anyone, Foggy.’”

No. He isn’t going to listen to this. Yes, he’s off-kilter and not really in a good place, but he doesn’t need this. He’s not going to talk about his admittedly piss poor mental state as though he’s on trial, especially since that’s a format he and Foggy reserve for _fun_ discussions. Like Batman vs Superman, or how many gerbils a professor has up his ass. They haven’t had one of those discussions lately.

He feels his heart kick up and his throat try to close. “No, Foggy. I’m not doing this. I can’t. I can’t.” He stands up, shakily, and heads back to their dorm. Foggy follows, not offering his arm as a guide, apparently content to watch Matt tap his cane a little bit harder than is strictly necessary. Maybe a lot harder.

“Matt, I want to help you – “

“Shut up,” he hisses. “Please. I need to. Just.”

“Just what?”

He’s barely got his breathing in check, he doesn’t think he can squeeze out another word, but he’s always been stubborn – “Just work this out on my own!” Okay, _now_ he’s not getting any more words out. He feels like his lungs are collapsing, but continues breathing aggressively through his nose. It’s almost comical – he’s used to it at this point.

His heart’s going a mile a minute and his lungs are collapsing, and all Matt can really think about this development is ‘What else is new?’

Foggy allows him to get back to their dorm room and prevents the door from slamming, and even lets Matt climb back into his bed. The one that he hates.

“Are you just gonna silent treatment me, then?” Foggy asks, and Matt opens his mouth for a snappy retort –

Even a week of regular panic attacks isn’t enough to desensitize his lungs to the sensation of _feeling like he’s dying_ , and out comes a truly hideous gasping wheeze. Matt pulls his blankets over his head as he falls into an audible rhythm of hyperventilating wheezes, and Foggy is immediately trying to get him out from the blankets.

“Matt, you need to breathe!” Foggy’s hissing, and Matt claps his hands over his ears, which allows Foggy to yank off his blankets, he’s crying, why is _Foggy_ crying? “Matt, please, come on – “ he hefts Matt up and presses him to his chest, and Matt can feel the vibrations from his pounding heart. “Breathe with me, buddy, come on. In, out. I don’t have any paper bags, come on, in, out, in, out…”

For several long moments, Matt refuses to try and match his breathing to Foggy out of sheer spite. He’s really not at his most rational. He could just hyperventilate until his heart explodes. That seems like a valid option. His heart feels like it’s already most of the way there. Or just until he passes out, at least. He’s got things to do before he dies.

“I _will_ call an ambulance if you don’t at least _try_ ,” Foggy threatens, and Matt gulps and forces an inhale to last longer than half a second. It’s hard to breathe around the giant ball of pain that’s taken up residence near his tonsils, but he hates hospitals more than he hates consciousness at that moment.

After an incredibly long time – definitely longer than the milkshake panic attack, at least – Matt’s breathing is at a semi normal speed. He’s sobbing, though, and he hates it, he hates it. “I hate this, I hate this so much,” Matt gasps out between sobs, and apparently at some point Foggy has climbed onto Matt’s bed and pulled the blanket around their shoulders. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this…”

“Yeah?” Foggy asks, quietly, rocking them both back and forth. Matt wants to hate it, but it’s honestly what he needs right then.

“I hate feeling this way,” he manages. “I hate not knowing how I feel, not knowing if something’s gonna set off another one of – _these –_ “

“That seems reasonable,” Foggy says, soothingly.

“I hate feeling like there’s something broken, and not knowing what it is,” he elaborates around another sob. “I hate crying and I can’t stop doing it. I hate not knowing why this is happening.” Foggy nods. His heart has slowed down, but it’s still too fast. “I hate that you have to put up with me.”

“Well, you’re the only one that feels that way,” Foggy whispers. “I promise.” His heartbeat stays steady, and that just makes Matt sob harder.

“I hate that you’re so nice when I’ve done nothing that…that warrants it.” He feels Foggy’s mouth open and plows on, “And I know you’re gonna say something perfect and kind and I respect that but I’m still not going to understand.”

Foggy exhales through his nose. He shifts a little bit, and the springs croak, and Matt rounds off his epic breakdown rant with…

“And I hate this goddamn bed.”

***

It’s better after that, for about six hours. And then it occurs to Matt that he’s so behind on all of his work, he’s so screwed, he’s never going to get anywhere in life, and has another panic attack. One of the ones he can keep swallowed and just ride through without needing Foggy to threaten him with ambulances. But still, it’s exhausting.

He’s resolved to go to all of his classes tomorrow, which means one class, at four PM, but he’ll do it. He doesn’t get to sleep till six in the morning, but Foggy gently shakes him awake at three and offers to guide him to class.

So he goes. Foggy lets the therapist matter drop, since he seems to be under the impression that Matt’s epic breakdown rant was therapeutic enough for the time being. And he’s not _wrong_ , but Matt still winds up leaving class fifteen minutes early to try not to throw up in the bathroom. But he went to class. Which was a small victory.

He feels marginally less awful knowing that, and even manages to go to the gym. When he gets back, Foggy makes him eat some pizza (he lucked out, the person who made the dough was actually wearing gloves), and asks gently if he needs to be reminded of any assignments or anything. Foggy throws things at him when he starts doing the spacing-out thing.

It takes about two weeks for Matt to feel like a functional human being again, and he realizes that the sensation of being underwater has lifted so slowly that he barely even noticed when it was gone. It wasn’t like he decided he was going to learn to swim, and through prodigious application of Hard Work overcame it – it just sort of went away.

Foggy, who Matt had thought was an angel before, is officially going to be nominated for sainthood. He listens to audiobooks with Matt, and occasionally turns around his computer screen to ask if a girl is hot (he always says yes), and tries to catch him off-guard by lobbing paper airplanes at him. But he also asks Matt how he’s doing, and insists on an honest answer.

“I think whatever…that was. Is gone,” Matt says, three weeks after waking up underwater. “There’s no alarm bells or anything going off in my head. I think I can even manage to check my grades without feeling like I’m going to hurl. Even for the stuff I shirked.”

“Good fucking riddance,” Foggy says jovially, and then he pulls Matt into a hug. “Seriously, though. That was scary and awful. If you think it’s gonna happen again, _let me know._ ”

“Yeah,” Matt says, and he really hopes he’s not lying, but he doesn’t know. He can’t make promises like that.

“Now, I ordered too much Thai food, and I need you to finish it because if you don’t, I _will_ , and then I’ll _die.”_

Matt laughs, and acquiesces, and thinks that everything will actually turn out all right. At least as long as Foggy is there.

**Author's Note:**

> At the end of my sophomore year of undergrad, I had a fairly minor mental breakdown. I was basically nonfunctional for a little while. It was kind of like a depressive episode, except with an extra helping of executive dysfunction and even more panic attacks. I legit worked myself up into a panicking, sobbing mess at the doctor's office because I had a stray thought about how Fred died in Harry Potter. It wasn't fun. I scared the shit out of my family and had to take a semester off of school. (I literally just. Didn't go to my final exams. Can't explain why. Just. Nope.) 
> 
> The moral of the story is that shit happens. Mental breakdowns suck. And sometimes you've just gotta keep going. This isn't a 'Matt tried really hard and overcame his brain shit' story. It's a 'Matt tried really hard and managed to somewhat mitigate the blast radius of his brain shit.' I, uh, didn't do that mitigating thing. Please get help, especially if you're worried you might hurt yourself. And in general, if you can't find a therapist, find a Foggy. 
> 
> Actually, everyone should find a Foggy. Not just people prone to nervous breakdowns.


End file.
